Follow Me Home
by Riniel Haerion
Summary: Prompt Fill: Axl and Zeb find a puppy and decide to take him home, after hearing Zeb talking to Geri the puppy, he realizes he hasn't been spending as much time with his best friend.


"It's...So tiny."

"Yeah Zeb, puppies tend to be tiny. What should we do with it?" Axl looked down at the puppy now curled up in his arms, fast asleep.

Axl and Zeb had been walking home from their classes when Axl had heard a small whimpering noise coming from an alleyway they passed by. They had ended up finding a small puppy whimpering inside an old cardboard box that was nearly falling apart. They were quick to rescue the small animal, and the puppy was quick to like them and had immediately fallen asleep in Axl's arms. They were now standing just outside of their flat when they realized that this may be slightly more complicated than they previously thought. They really should have thought this through more.

"Uh...What's Gaia going to say?" Zeb said finally, staring up at their flat.

"I don't know...She might tell us we're irresponsible and that we can barely take care of ourselves." Axl said, remembering back to the many scoldings they got from their female friend. "We'll probably have to put the puppy up for adoption somewhere."

"But...I don't want anyone else to have Geri." Zeb said, taking the now awake wriggling puppy from Axl's arms.

Axl raised an eyebrow. "Geri. You already have a name picked out for him?"

"Her, actually. And yes. I thought of it on the way back. And why can't we keep her? I know it's kinda true what Gaia's said before, about us not being able to take care of ourselves. But how will we know that Geri will go to a loving home? I mean we found her in a box! What if it happens again? Geri out in the cold, and the rain..."

"Zeb. She's a puppy. And yeah, I don't want...Geri, to be out in the cold or going to another family, it's kinda a big responsibility."

"Yeah, but you're Odin! Are you trying to say that Odin can't take care of a small defenseless puppy?" Zeb held Geri up to Axl's face, and she proceeded to lick him.

Axl couldn't help but laugh at the overjoyed puppy, as if Geri knew that Axl was quickly caving in to her sheer cuteness. "Okay...You win Zeb. But you're going to be the one trying to convince Gaia, and if she says no, Geri goes." Zeb nodded at Axl excitedly, and bounded in with Geri bouncing along in his arms.

Oddly enough, it had been easier to convince Gaia at letting them keep Geri than Axl had expected. Perhaps it had been the fact that it seemed Geri knew how crucial this was and put her cuteness into overload when Gaia came into sight. But she had said yes, as long as they made sure to take care of Geri properly. And they were doing a fairly good job of it, she was growing bigger and bigger everyday and was really fond of people, but mostly Zeb and Axl. Geri was mostly nice to the rest of the Johnsons brothers, besides Anders for some reason. Geri always growled at Anders, and Anders always made it a point to growl back at her. Zeb took care of Geri more than anyone else though, and it seems that Geri was almost a bit of an Axl replacement for whenever he had to leave to do 'God business" that Zeb wasn't allowed to go to because he was only a mortal.

It was one of those days when Axl was gone for most of the day, off with Mike and the rest looking for Frigg. As usual, they made no progress besides some rathered bruised egos and loss of dignity, but that was no different than what usually happened. Axl arrived back at the flat during the evening, and he wanted nothing more than to land on his bed and sleep for a few days. But as he walked to his room, he heard talking from Zeb's room. He could only hear Zeb's voice, and it couldn't be a woman because that never happened to Zeb at all. He crept up to the door that was opened slightly ajar, and peered in. Zeb was facing away from him, and Axl realized that Zeb was holding Geri in his arms. Zeb was talking to Geri.

"...And it's strange, you know...Axl is one of my best friends, but it feels like I'm losing him a bit. We don't go out often anymore to go drink or try to pick up chicks. It seems like he's always out doing God business or whatever. I can't even tag along with that because I'm mortal!" Zeb said to Geri, scratching her ear. "I don't want to lose him, but I keep seeing less and less of him. And I don't think his family likes me too well anyways. I'm just the annoying mortal friend. Even though it's so badass that Axl is Odin, I'm a bit scared he'll find the Frigg and then he's gonna leave me. But at least I'll still have you Geri. You can be my new companion, even if you don't drink. You might be able to pick up chicks though..." Zeb fell silent.

Axl didn't know what to think. After all this time he never really bothered wondering what Zeb must think of what's going on. He was always so supportive of helping Axl with his new God powers, but he never realized that Zeb was going on the backburner as far as his life went. Every day he now spent searching for the Frigg, and he'd only go out with Zeb whenever his brothers were all busy with their own lives and couldn't help him. Zeb must feel so left out when he's abandoned every day. Suddenly all the tiredness he'd felt before had disappeared, and he pushed Zeb's door open, causing the shorter male to jump slightly. Geri bounded out of Zeb's grasp to jump around Axl in excitement, yapping away. Axl bent down and scratched her ear absent-mindedly, not looking at Zeb.

"So, how was the Frigg hunt?" Zeb asked.

"Same as usual, no God powers just yet." Axl laughed a bit awkwardly. "So...I was wondering...Do you want to head down to a pub or something?"

Zeb looked confused. "Aren't you tired? You've been gone since this morning."

Axl shrugged. "Yeah, well, we haven't gone out to a pub in a while. It'll be fun! Just the two of us, no Frigg hunts, but we can see if we can find you a girl if you want. Unless you've resigned yourself to realizing that Geri will be the only female in your life." Axl gestured to the dog who had bounded back to Zeb.

"Haha, very fun. And yeah, that'd be great." Zeb smiled.

An Axl smiled back. He was determined that he wasn't going to forget about Zeb after gaining his God powers, if he ever did.


End file.
